Looking out for small businesses is a mainstay of political rhetoric these days. "The small business community is sort of a favored group on which to shower tax breaks," said Joseph Rosenberg, research associate at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

But have there been 17 tax cuts for small businesses by the Obama administration?

Asked for backup, the DNC press office pointed us to a Feb. 25, 2011, posting on the official White House blog titled "Seventeen Small Business Tax Cuts and Counting." The post enumerates 17 small business tax cuts and credits created or extended through legislation signed by President Barack Obama.

Eight of them were included in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the economic stimulus), the Affordable Care Act (aka the health care law), and the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (aka the Hire Act). Among the cuts: the exclusion of up to 75 percent of capital gains on key small business investments; a tax credit for the cost of health insurance for small business employees, and new tax credits for hiring Americans out of work for at least two months. . . .

The policy community and commentariat often equate health care reform with the legislation (actually two pieces of legislation) that President Obama signed into law last year. As everyone knows, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that those two laws would, if fully implemented, reduce the federal budget deficit by $143 billion from 2010-2019. That’s the basis for the claim that “health care reform would reduce the deficit over the next ten years.” (CBO also discussed what would happen in later years, where the law, if allowed to execute fully, would have a bigger effect, but let’s leave that to the side right now.)

The complication, which Greg’s post partly addresses, is that the health care reform legislation included many provisions. Greg notes, for example, that some expanded health insurance, while others raised taxes. In his view, only the first part constitutes health care reform — an effort that by itself would widen the deficit — while the tax increases are what made the legislation deficit-reducing.

In fact, it’s more complicated than that. By my count, the two pieces of health care reform legislation combined seven different sets of provisions:

5. Tax increases not related to insurance coverage (e.g., the new tax on investment income)

6. The CLASS Act, which created an insurance program for long-term care

7. Reform of federal subsidies for student loans

(The House Republicans’ effort to repeal health care reform would overturn 1-6, but leave the student loan changes in place.) . . .

some people are indeed under the mistaken impression that health care reform, by itself, reduces the budget deficit over the next ten years. It doesn’t.

However, Greg’s analogy has a flaw: it presumes that none of the tax increases count as health reform. I disagree.

Our current tax system provides enormous ($200 billion per year) subsidies for employer-provided health insurance. They should be viewed as part of the government’s existing intervention in the health marketplace. And rolling back those subsidies strikes me as essential to future health care reform. I would count any revenues raised from doing so as part of health care reform.

That didn’t happen, but the legislation did include a tax on “Cadillac” health plans as a partial substitute. That will clearly affect health insurance markets, and it offset a portion of existing tax subsidies. For both those reasons, it should be viewed as part of health care reform.

The key thing is not the difference between spending and revenues, but between provisions that fundamentally change the health care system and those that do not.

Happily, I am not alone in this view. Indeed, it has been endorsed by none other than the Congressional Budget Office. CBO grappled with this issue during the health care debate. And after much thought, it came up with a useful measure of the health care reform part of the legislation: the “Federal Government’s Budgetary Commitment to Health Care“. This measure combines the spending and tax subsidies that the government provides for health care.

Taking all the health care provisions into account, CBO concluded that the health care reform legislation would increase the federal government’s budgetary commitment to health care. But not as much as many critics suggest. Adding together items (1) through (4) on my list, CBO concluded that the health care reform parts of the legislation would increase the deficit by about $400 billion over ten years. That would then be more than offset by the other provisions — primarily taxes but also the student loan provisions and the CLASS Act. (In later years, by the way, CBO projects that the legislation would actually reduce the federal commitment to health care.) . . .

. . . The root of this claim appears to be Section 1402 of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, titled "Unearned income Medicare contribution." Legislative wonks might remember that this was the second part of the health care bill, passed via reconciliation so that it only required 50 votes. Democrats had to do it that way after they lost their 60-seat majority due to a special election for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. (Republican Scott Brown won the seat that Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, held until his death.)

The health care law imposes a 3.8 percent tax on the investment income of couples who make more than $250,000 or individuals who make more than $200,000. That investment income could include income from real estate transactions. But it would only apply to those high earners, who make up less than 5 percent of all taxpayers. We're not sure why the e-mail extrapolates this tax to all real estate transactions, but that's the only 3.8 percent tax we could find in the new law. We ran this by two tax policy experts who confirmed our analysis of the new law.

Under current law, workers pay Medicare hospital taxes on wages. Workers and employers split a 2.9 percent tax; the self-employed pay all of it.

The new tax marks the first time investment income will be subject to Medicare taxes, said Clint Stretch, the managing principal for tax policy at Deloitte Tax LLP. We should point out that the government currently taxes investment income in various ways and could have simply raised current rates.

But lawmakers wanted to link the new revenues to health care, Stretch said. "The point of doing it as a Medicare tax was to have the money go to the Medicare trust fund and have it act like a tax that is paying for health care. So there is additional complexity," he said.

And by the way, if you're an empty-nester of any means, and you're thinking of downsizing, part of your profits are already tax-free. There are long-standing tax exemptions on the profits from home sales. In general, if you sell your own home, individuals are not taxed on the first $250,000 of profit and married couples are not taxed on the first $500,000 of profit. Again, that's profit, not the sales price.

If you're wealthy and sell your home at a substantial profit, it's possible you might get hit with the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income. Most Americans won't have to worry about this, though. . . .

Rep. John Carter says families with special needs children will pay $13 billion more in taxes under the new health care law. . .

Ellis, from Americans for Tax Reform, agreed there's no data on how many FSA accounts are held by special-needs parents. But he said they'll be particularly affected by a cap because they bear high costs relating to special-needs education.

Ellis said he has a friend who uses his FSA to help pay his Down syndrome child's tuition at a special-needs' school in the District of Columbia. Ellis said his friend's employer caps his flexible spending account at $5,000.

On the other hand, Rich Robison, executive director of the Federation for Children with Special Needs in Massachusetts, and the parent of two young adults with Down syndrome, pointed out that the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act (IDEA) requires schools to pay for accommodations a child with special needs may need to obtain a "free appropriate public education."

Henry Aaron, an economics scholar at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, said he suspects "only a tiny fraction" of the estimated $13 billion tax revenue would come from families with special-needs' children.

Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that Carter's claim ignores the health law's broader impact: the JCT and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office project that 32 million uninsured will have health insurance coverage by 2016. "Some of those are families with people with special needs," he said.

The upshot?

Carter's statement that the health care law will smack a $13 billion tax increase entirely on families with children who have special needs defies common sense. At our inquiry, his office backed off the sweep of Carter's Twitter message and conceded they didn't have numbers confirming that special-needs' families would bear the brunt of the tax change.

All in all, Carter makes a dramatic, unsupported charge. We rate his statement as Pants on Fire.

Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins kicked off the New Year attacking recent side effects of health care overhaul on Flexible Spending Accounts, which allow workers to pay medical expenses with pre-tax dollars. . . .

According to the Internal Revenue Service guidance on flexible spending accounts, a new provision "as added by the Affordable Care Act, provides that...beginning after December 31, 2010, expenses incurred for a medicine or a drug shall be treated as a reimbursement for medical expenses only if such medicine or drug is a prescribed drug (determined without regard to whether such drug is available without a prescription) or is insulin."

In other words, you will no longer be able to use FSAs to pay for your aspirin, antacids and other over-the-counter drugs if they’re not prescribed by a physician.

What about HSAs -- tax-advantaged health savings accounts? Pretty much the same.

The IRS says that "a distribution from an HSA...for a medicine or drug is a tax-free qualified medical expense only if (1) the medicine or drug requires a prescription, (2) is an over-the-counter medicine or drug and the individual obtains a prescription, or (3) is insulin."

Otherwise, those "non-qualified expenses" will be taxed at 20 percent rather than the current 10 percent for HSA plan participants.

So, while the recently enacted portion of the health care law will not stop consumers from being able to buy over-the-counter drugs through their plans, it will require a prescription to do so.

On that count, Mullins stays relatively safe by employing the phrase "non-prescription health needs" at the end of his claim. True, those items like aspirin can still qualify for reimbursement with a prescription, but then they would not longer be "non-prescription."

But the same phrase also presents a problem for Mullins because other "non-prescription" items such as medical supplies and first-aid items remain eligible for reimbursement without a prescription.

"Over-the-counter medications are treated differently than over-the-counter medical items like Band-Aids, which are covered without a prescription," said Michael Waxman of Save Flexible Spending Plans. . . .

Mullins says health care law provisions that took effect Jan. 1 will "remove the ability of consumers to use FSA and HSA plans to pay for things like aspirin and other non-prescription health needs."

It’s true that as of Jan. 1, FSA and HSA plans no longer offered reimbursements for over-the-counter drugs without a prescription. However, those same items could be covered with a prescription.

Mullins misses a caveat by not noting that non-prescription items like crutches, bandages, and health supplies like diagnostic devices and blood sugar test kits remain covered. But his comments seem directed at drugs.

The health care reform law "offset(s) 6 years of benefits with 10 years of tax increases."

Eric Cantor on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 in a statement.

Cantor says health care reform collects 10 years of taxes for six years of benefits . . .

"Despite claims that this trillion dollar bill would reduce deficits and save taxpayer dollars, the new law is riddled with budget gimmicks that double count savings, offset 6 years of benefits with 10 years of tax increases, and rely on cuts to Medicare and tax increases to fund a new entitlement," Cantor said.

We wondered about the oft-repeated assertion that the law would offset six years of benefits with 10 years of tax increases.

"By law, ObamaCare implements new taxes and fees to ‘pay for’ new subsides aka benefits. With regard to the question about offsetting six years of benefits with ten years of tax increases, the law raises taxes and fees immediately upon enactment – as we have already seen – while not paying out for the cost of benefits contained within the law until 2014. Thus, the 10-year period scored by the CBO only accounts for the cost of 6 years of benefits actually going out the door, compared to 10 years of taxes and fees coming in."

The federal Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee of Congress with a professional staff of economists, attorneys and accountants, provided members a detailed breakdown of tax impact from 2010-2019.

• Starting in 2013, Medicare payroll taxes increase 0.9 percentage points for people with incomes over $200,000 ($250,000 for couples filing jointly). Also, people at this income level would pay a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income. The 10-year cost: $210.2 billion.

• Starting in 2018, a new 40 percent excise tax on high-cost health plans, so-called "Cadillac plans" (over $10,200 for individuals, $27,500 for families), kicks in. That's expected to bring the government a total of $32 billion in 2018 and 2019.

• Starting in 2011, there's a new fee for pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers. That's expected to raise $27 billion over 10 years.

• Starting in 2013, the floor on medical expense deductions on itemized income tax returns will be raised from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of income. That's expected to bring in $15.2 billion over the next 10 years.

• Starting in 2011, a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services. That's expected to bring in $2.7 billion over the next 10 years.

There also is money in the law going the other way. The plan includes government money, in the form of tax credits, to subsidize the cost of health insurance for lower-income people who don't get insurance through their employer. For the record, many Republicans and tax experts argue those shouldn't count as tax cuts. And there is a tax cut for some very small businesses that allows them to write off a portion of the cost of providing insurance to their employees.

Combined with various other revenue-generating provisions, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the health law will bring in more than $437.8 billion by 2019. The government's nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the additional revenues coming in to the government to be $525 billion between now and 2019. . . .

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AllenFirst and foremost I'm a proud Dad & lucky Husband. They say great minds can differ (not that I claim to have a great mind). Remember that $ and my opinion buys coffee at the diner.

do you want to explain that statement. it appears you are saying that once a bill (did you mean a law????) was passed, it could be changed w/o a new law or amendment????

I don't understand your claim here.

Do you know about the huge financial reform signed into law a little over a year ago? It has been completely dismantled without any legislation being passed, it doesn't have its regulatory body set up after a year, and most of its provisions were either completely scrapped or are ineffective. It was supposed to be the strongest financial reform bill since the Great Depression. Instead, it's a joke.

Do you know about the huge financial reform signed into law a little over a year ago? It has been completely dismantled without any legislation being passed, it doesn't have its regulatory body set up after a year, and most of its provisions were either completely scrapped or are ineffective. It was supposed to be the strongest financial reform bill since the Great Depression. Instead, it's a joke.

There is a difference between changing a law and simply not enforcing it. You seem to be describing a situation where the law was simply not enforced. If you travel faster than the speed limit and don't get a traffic citation, you still broke the law but the law was not enforced.

I'd be really curious about what this law was. If the Congress withdrew funds to enforce it, then the problem is not necessarily the law but the Congress.

Do you know about the huge financial reform signed into law a little over a year ago? It has been completely dismantled without any legislation being passed, it doesn't have its regulatory body set up after a year, and most of its provisions were either completely scrapped or are ineffective. It was supposed to be the strongest financial reform bill since the Great Depression. Instead, it's a joke.

Do you know about the huge financial reform signed into law a little over a year ago? It has been completely dismantled without any legislation being passed, it doesn't have its regulatory body set up after a year, and most of its provisions were either completely scrapped or are ineffective. It was supposed to be the strongest financial reform bill since the Great Depression. Instead, it's a joke.

many "progressive" critics of D/F as passed said it didn't go far enough, many "conservative" critics of D/F said it went too far.

perhaps you were talking about the Republicans in the Senate and their threats:

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- President Obama's nominee to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau got a hearing on Tuesday, but that may be all he gets.

Democrats want Richard Cordray to be the consumer bureau's first director. Republicans say they haven't changed their mind -- they won't confirm any director to run the bureau without significant changes to the bureau's structure, which would weaken the bureau's powers.

During the Tuesday hearing, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking panel, Sen. Richard Shelby, called the hearing "premature," saying that the panel shouldn't be considering any nominee until Democrats take their demands for accountability more seriously.

Republicans want the director replaced with a panel and they want to make it easier to veto consumer bureau rules.

"You're caught between a big substantive debate here, as you well know," Shelby said to Cordray.

Cordray, 52, works as the chief enforcement officer for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in Washington. He's an attorney who served in the Ohio state house and teaches at Ohio State University as an adjunct professor.

Democrats used the Senate banking hearing to complain that Republicans were using filibuster powers to hamstring the bureau and rehash a battle fought last year. . . .

<boy, I've hijacked my own thread, once again, >

« Last Edit: Sep 07, 2011, 01:11PM by sly fox »

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AllenFirst and foremost I'm a proud Dad & lucky Husband. They say great minds can differ (not that I claim to have a great mind). Remember that $ and my opinion buys coffee at the diner.

As it stands now, the candidates with "jobs" plans look basically identical and are focused on things like corporate a tax holiday to bring in offshore money (which went almost entirely to help the balance sheets and stock holders and not to jobs last time) rather then creating jobs. Ones without "plans" either say things along the same lines, rely on misleading numbers(Perry), and then there's Ron Paul who says the government should just stay out of it.

Sadly I'm seeing an almost complete lack of job growth measures in their "jobs" proposals but rather just budget stuff and handouts for large corporations and super rich. Kind of like how Boehner's letter to Obama about his upcoming speech claimed a number of budget bills were "job" bills, including the 2012 budget. Seriously, laying out a budget is not a "jobs" proposal any more then the bills to rename public works are.

I hate to say the obvious but the government cannot create jobs in the private sector, only the public. If we are looking to the government to create jobs, increased government spending and workforce is a necessary part of it. Otherwise, the most it can do is encourage the private sector with a stick and or a carrot. Right now, the private sector is the leanest and most productive and profitable it's ever been. They don't have the demand or the need to bring on many other people, and giving out "carrots" like reducing regs and/or taxes is likely only to increase their profits at a cost to the general public. And any "stick" policies like addressing the trade imbalances, off-shoring, and such are quickly labeled as "job killing" when they're really profit-reducing in an attempt to make it cost effective to bring employment back to this country. Right now, just the only thing on the plate for the GOP is not a balance of all of them, which is probably needed, but a complete focus on useless carrots that serve to benefit their donor base.

Mr. Romney was asked about the fact that 47 percent of American households pay no federal income taxes, and he replied by lamenting that so many people do not support "our troops" or roads and schools. The actual figure is 46 percent for 2011, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of Brookings Institution and Urban Institute think tanks; about 70 percent are households with low-income workers, and the rest are higher-income households whose tax breaks erase their liability.

But those households do pay federal taxes, including payroll taxes and the excise taxes on gasoline and other products that support the federal roads system. And many pay local taxes, including property taxes, that support public schools.

of course with the Republican Primary voters, it might just get him the nomination.

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AllenFirst and foremost I'm a proud Dad & lucky Husband. They say great minds can differ (not that I claim to have a great mind). Remember that $ and my opinion buys coffee at the diner.

... you -- you often here this figure, 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax, and -- and the promised effort underway soon, at least, in Washington to correct that. Isn't some of this argument semantics? And won't the effort to correct that be a de facto tax increase?

ROMNEY: You know, I must admit, I have a bit of a hard time with the idea that there are people who don't feel like they're supporting our troops by contributing tax revenue through -- through the income tax or through other tax vehicles.

I don't want to raise taxes on the American people, but I think everybody ought to feel that they're part of this effort and that they're providing for our military, providing for our roads, providing for our schools. That ought to be part of what -- what every American experiences.

But right now, the question is not the people at the -- that are not paying taxes at the low end. The question is not the people who are very, very rich. The question is, how about middle-income Americans?

Who are the people most hurt by the Obama economy? And the answer is the middle class. The great majority of Americans are having a very, very difficult time. And our effort has to be to find ways to reduce to burden on those people.

And that's why I've proposed that anybody who's earning $200,000 a year and less ought to be able to save their money tax-free, no tax on interest, dividends, or capital gains. Let people save their money, invest in America, and not have to give more money to the government. The middle class needs our help.

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AllenFirst and foremost I'm a proud Dad & lucky Husband. They say great minds can differ (not that I claim to have a great mind). Remember that $ and my opinion buys coffee at the diner.

exactly 46 percent of the populace doesn't pay taxes, so..." It's a fallacy. That just means that exactly the majority of people in this country don't even make enough ****** money to contribute more than they take out in benefits. We should be ASHAMED of that--not ashamed of the 46 percent, but ashamed of the fact that we've allowed wealth to migrate so obscenely to such a small portion of the populace.

Repubs outraged that a family of 4 that makes that less than $22,350/year has no tax liability at the end of the year? These families are living the high life! We need to take some of that back in the name of millionaires that pay an average of 10% tax liability after deductions!

This remains an incredibly wealthy country--it's just that a smaller and smaller number of people benefit from that wealth. Until we truly see that for the obscenity it is, nothing will change.

It's long been the goal of the Republican to turn America's economy into a Latin-American type economy with large inequities between rich and poor, and now with the help of the moderate senators, Obama, teahadists and the teavangelicals, this is coming to fruition. Obama's latest cave-in allowing a decrease in education spending is part of this scheme.

I find it funny he comments that the middle class is the worst hurt by the Obama economy. I don't like everything Obama does, but I give him credit for taxes. We are at the lowest rates on taxes we've had since the 60s, including the middle class. Hardly 'overtaxed'. At some point the rates are less important than the loopholes, and I think that we are near or at the point now.

During the time that Mitt was governor of Massachusetts, employment went up. However, there was also a veto proof Democratic majority in the General Court. As for his job creation in the private sector, many people were laid off when his company did the synergy thing with the leveraged buyouts and such, and while Bain Capital did grow and create jobs, the leveraged buyouts eliminated jobs. I am uncertain as to whether Mitt created or lost jobs in the private sector; my guess is that he eliminated more jobs by shutting down companies than he created at Bain Capital. And, the reason that Mitt didn't run for reelection for governor is because he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being reelected. And, as for Mitt's claim about being a Washington insider, that is true; he lost to Ted Kennedy when he was trying to get into the Senate.

. . . While laying out his plan to reform the entitlement program Wednesday, the former Massachusetts governor criticized what he sees as a nonexistent plan from the president and an unfeasible plan proposed by Texas Gov. Perry.

"So those are the three models, one is the president's, which is to say something needs to happen but I'm not willing to tell you anything about how to do it, number two is that of Gov. Perry that says, look send it back to the states," Romney said at a town hall in Miami. "And number three is the plan I proposed, which is to say look, we're not going to raise taxes, we're going to slow the rate of inflation down and in calculating the benefit of high income Social Security recipients and overtime we'll increase the retirement age by a modest amount."

. . . Romney also said he disagrees with Perry's suggestion that individual states take control of Social Security.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate, who is making his second bid for the White House, stepped up his attacks at Wednesday's event explaining what he sees are the failures of removing the federal government from the equation.

"In my opinion this thing does not work in any way, shape or form," Romney said. "I can't see anything which suggests it makes any sense whatsoever to end Social Security as a federal entitlement and send it back to the states."

Romney said Perry's plan raises a series of other questions, which he released in a press statement earlier in the day, including how individuals would move to other areas of the country and if states could forgo a pension program all together.

Perry Campaign Spokesman Ray Sullivan responded to Romney's comments in a press release, saying that while Romney has been running for office, Perry has proposed a plan that will protect the program for future generations.

"Rick Perry and other conservatives are courageous enough to be honest about federal spending and entitlements, whether Mr. Romney and the liberals like it or not," Sullivan said. "Gov. Perry has been clear that he will protect benefits for those at and nearing retirement, and work with citizens, experts and elected leaders to fix Social Security financing for future generations."

and they complain that the President isn't specific.

"where is the beef"

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AllenFirst and foremost I'm a proud Dad & lucky Husband. They say great minds can differ (not that I claim to have a great mind). Remember that $ and my opinion buys coffee at the diner.

"I have a plan to end the War. I can't tell you what it is because that would sabotage our efforts in the field."

He had no plan. He was elected over Humphrey because America was disgusted with the no-win situation there.

We did end the Viet-Nam War during Nixon's Presidency (actually under Ford). Not because we won; the other side didn't lose. This is the way to beat the US. We don't like long wars. The Iraqis and Afghanis know this and are in the process of bleeding us dry.

I find it funny he comments that the middle class is the worst hurt by the Obama economy.

It's far from the truth. The people hurt the most by this economy have been the poor. The poverty level is defined as $22,350 per year for a family of four. This is very low because no family of four could live on that unless someone else was providing them with a place to live. 13.2% of Americans were living below the poverty level at the height of the recession back when Obama was elected in 2008. Despite the end of the recession, Democratic control of both houses, and the stimulus package, more people have fallen into poverty during the Obama presidency. When you consider that 15.1% of Americans are now living below the poverty level, one can appreciate how truly ineffective Obama has been. Unfortunately, I hear no Republicans and very few Democrats willing to address this very serious situation.